Neal and Marie Bishop

Just Another Testimony

How I Came To Be At First Tabernacle Fellowship – An Israel Congregation

By Neal S. Bishop

One of my favorite sayings is “Proof is always in the pudding.” In other words, it’s the end result that proves the process. If the pudding tastes really good, then the processes used to get the pudding must have been properly done.

Therefore, this pudding, being in the Congregation of Israel located in the First Tabernacle Fellowship of Sacramento, means that the processes that got me here, were all necessary and properly done.

At this moment, I am sixty-seven years old.
Back in 2002 I received a Bachelors Degree in Theology.
Even further back in 1996, my wife, Marie, and I spent a year and a half in Kisumu, Kenya (located at the northern tip of Lake Victoria) teaching “a Practical Bible Course For the New Creation Believer” to what grew to be a group of 47 students from many of the local churches; pastors, lay leaders, professional people, etc.

All of this being said to put a few of our bonafides on the table, in order to state that, Marie and I, have taken our faith in Yahweh and Yahshua seriously and have, to some degree, been obedient to His calling for our ministry.

Back in my childhood, I was raised in a household where my father’s conservative Hard Shell Baptist upbringing in Georgia, was countered by my mother’s northern Presbyterian, New York liberalism. He was a strict disciplinarian and she was of the “wait till your father gets home” discipline. My religious training as a toddler consisted of “Now I lay me down to sleep” and the Lord’s Prayer. Otherwise, my parents were mostly “hands off” about religion.

A little later, I remember thinking that all the stories I heard at Sunday School about Sampson, and the Baby Jesus, Adam and Eve and Moses, were the same kind of stories like Rumplestiltskin, Goldilocks and the Three Bears and the rest of all those fairytales. So, naturally, I didn’t pay much attention to any of them…they were just stories.

Then, in my early teens, I tried to attend various churches in the Miami area, but in all cases, I always felt out of place, and had the odd feeling that most people who go to church weren’t real. So I quit going altogether.

Then at nineteen, I went through this stage where I thought that I must be totally wrong about religion. I convinced myself that my attitude about religion was just contrary and decided to “take on religion” and converted to what I thought at the time as “The Religion”, The Holy Roman Catholic Church.

I was in the US Navy at this time, attached to VF-162, a fighter squadron aboard the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany. At this time we were on our way to the South China Sea, during our early involvement in the VietNam Conflict.” I had been working for a straight 28 hours preparing planes on the flight deck for sorties to take place the nest day. I was in my upper tier bunk and was trying to be a good catholic by saying my Rosary. In the middle of the second round of beads, I actually felt myself slipping into an automatic recitation; it felt like going into a trance. I stopped. I never said a Rosary again, and I never entered a Catholic Church again.

After four years in the US Navy and a couple of years trying to grapple with life in the real world, I began to search in earnest for truth. I read from all the “great philosophers” and about all the worlds religions and religious books…and the one conclusion I came to was that, none of what I had researched and read contained any real truth. There were no real answers to the questions I had rattling around in my head and I was discouraged and getting angry at life.

By this time, I had met and married my wife, Marie. We were living in Colorado Springs. She had been a daughter in the family of Avraham since she was child. And it was her quiet influence and prayers for me that finally allowed me to hear that still small voice of the Holy Spirit. So it was that at the beginning of 1991, I made a decision to look into the one book on “religion” that I had never seriously considered during my search for answers and truth…The Holy Bible.

Marie had an old, earmarked and highlighted and underlined and falling apart copy of a KJV of Ryrie’s Study Bible. Determined to read it cover to cover, I began reading the Bible at Matthew. When I got to “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen…” in Hebrews 11:1, I knew that I had finally found the source of answers and truth that I had been looking for. I finished the New Testament and then read the Old Testament, all within one month. I then re-read the Bible cover to cover three more times in succession. By the time I finished this I was not only convinced that I was now “a child of the living God” but I also knew that I could never go back to what I had come from. I knew I was responsible for what I had learned.

In August of 1996 Marie and I sold our house and property, gave away most of our possessions and traveled to Kisumu, Kenya in order to teach that Bible Course I mentioned earlier. We also planted three churches and supported Salem Orphanage Home that was established and managed by John and Phoebe Onyango. They started with 27 children when we had initially started, and now have over 150 children with a medical clinic and school for grades 1-8.

After returning from Kisumu, I pursued a four-year Bachelors degree in Theology and graduated March of 2002.

During all this time, I had a strong feeling, without any substance, that the direction Christianity was going in and had been pointed in, for a good many years was not right. The church, as far as I could see, was always trying to find reason to move further away from God, looking for excuses to have less discipline in their daily lives rather than more. And so, the search for a Biblically Disciplined Church began. We joined several churches over the next ten years. We were welcomed with open arms by congregations and pastors. We were elected to Deacon and Trustee and Directors Boards, we were made elders and I taught Sunday Schools and Bible Studies and I preached and spoke at conferences on many Biblical subjects. But eventually, when subjects of discipline and God’s Law, obedience and tithing, when teaching the truth of Christmas and Easter and Halloween all came up, troubles began to pile up. It was never the people of the congregations who came to be upset at us for what we were teaching and preaching…it was the pastors who came against us. And not having a spirit of Absalom and not wanting to be the cause of divisions and derisions, we would leave.

We even went to a Messianic Jewish Congregation where it was made plain that we first must be Jewish in order to participate in Synagogue. That didn’t seem like it would work out too well either.

By the time that 2009 was coming to a close, Marie and I had almost decided to give up our search. But one last time, I prayed and asked the Father to point us in some meaningful direction if He wanted for us to continue, because I had done everything I knew how to do and had failed miserably.

One last time I looked in the phone book. I was going to look for something…just exactly what, I didn’t quite know. But I opened the phone book to Churches and wrote down four phone numbers. Three of them were for Jews For Jesus type churches. I was willing to give them another chance. But the last one on the list intrigued me the most. First Tabernacle Fellowship. The word “tabernacle” was one that I had never seen before in listings of churches. And for some reason that is the one I called first. And after that call, I didn’t need to call any of the others.

When I talked with Pastor Holman that afternoon, he told me that not only did we not have to be Jewish to worship Yahweh, we couldn’t be become Jewish. He then explained to me that there was a difference between being Hebraic and being Jewish.

We showed up that Wednesday for Torah study. Then we celebrated the Sabbath at FTF…and we have been there ever since. We could not be happier.

We have found what God the Father has been telling us about. We have found our heritage and we know now, that our heritage is The Word…Torah…and the Torah made flesh to dwell among us…Yahshua. I am grateful to Yahweh for showing us the way home to Israel. Amen

AliceAnn Cantelow’s Testimony of Finding Our Hebraic Roots

When I worked at a shelter for homeless women and children, we had a Bible study every morning with the women in the house. Once a week we went over the 10 commandments in Exodus 20. Every time the 4th commandment came up, my spirit reminded me that we Christians never honored that particular one. It is the longest, most specific commandment given. Why didn’t we? Few of our women had any knowledge of the 10 commandments, especially this 4th one. Every time I took them to church on Sunday, I knew it was the wrong day but didn’t want to confuse them by “bucking the system” in such a dramatic way.

Finally, when I retired, I could at last follow our precious Savior all the way in a completed life with Him according to John 14:15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” After getting settled in my little rented cottage on a ranch in San Ramon, California, I asked Him in my morning prayers, “Do You want me to keep the Sabbath?” It was like the floodgates were suddenly opened and spilled out all over me! I was flooded with light. He poured out His Spirit over almost two pages of my prayer journal. I was convinced!

I immediately looked up the 7th.Day Adventist Church and started attending. After a few months, I could see that His Word was being compromised in too many ways so I checked out the Jewish Synagogues in the phone book and found one who also worshipped God’s Son. I have been attending “Messianic churches” ever since but First Tabernacle Fellowship has become my true home now, uninterrupted by man’s thinking but completely committed to His Holy Word and filled with His devoted children. Thank you Yeshua!